February 19, 2009

Pitt's first Gates scholar named

University Honors College senior Katherine M. MacCord, an anthropology major with a minor in German, has been named a Gates Cambridge Scholar.

MacCord, who also is pursuing a certificate in conceptual foundations of medicine through the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, is the first Pitt student to receive the Gates Cambridge Scholarship since it was established in 2000 through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation..Scholarships are awarded on the basis of a person’s intellectual ability, leadership capacity and desire to make contributions to society worldwide by providing service to communities and improving the lives of others.

MacCord was one of 37 U.S. students selected to receive the award.

She is completing a Bachelor of Philosophy in the Honors College. She has been accepted into the Department of Biological Anthropology at Cambridge’s Churchill College, where she will pursue a Master of Philosophy in human evolutionary studies. Her two main areas of interest are environmental influences on growth and development as well as evolutionary theory, mechanisms and process.

MacCord also plans to continue her research in juvenile osteology in the Duckworth Laboratory at Cambridge, where she will work on the complex effects of disease, malnutrition and environment on skeletal growth.

Other awards she has received include the Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship, a Brackenridge Fellowship, the Chancellor’s Undergraduate Teaching Fellowship and a University Honors College research grant, all in 2007; a United States Steel Foundation Undergraduate Research Award, a Berner Fellowship and an International Studies Fund Grant, all in the summer of 2008, and a Berner Fellowship for the 2008-09 school year.